C'est la "vie," period...

[Brian Stonehill Media Studies Pomona College]

Beyond the eponymous novel, V has famously been Pynchon's fetish letter
throughout his career, whether end-stopped or as an initial.  Try counting all
the V-words on the first page of _Gravity's Rainbow_, the book about the V-2. 
Consider _Vineland_.  u.s.w.

As to why, while I love Bonnie's vision of a containment of threats to the
poetical...  I've always thought V (as a sign, not the character) matters so
much because

PYnchon takes up where entroPY leaves off.

V visually depicts a falling off, followed by a bouncing back.

But just once!  Not an endless W, like the traffic on a listserv that falls
off, revives, falls off...  V period (or V full-stop, he'd like that touch of
zed-land) means (as in title of a Bertrand Tavernier film) "La Vie et Rien
d'autre" (Life & Nothing But).

-- Brian